Why Facebook Ads Work and What They Can Bring to Your Brand

Contrary to popular belief, Facebook is more than a place to find the baby pictures your family won’t stop posting, learn a new recipe that you will probably never cook, and catch up with an old friend from high school, all within the span of an hour.

For businesses of all shapes and sizes, Facebook is also a huge marketing channel that allows brands to reach a new level of outreach potential. All marketers should understand the impact of Facebook’s platform. Facebook accounts for 80.4% of U.S. social referrals to e-commerce sites. Thanks to Facebook Ads, businesses can cater outreach to specific business goals or custom audience targets.

In order to maximize your company’s success with Facebook Ads, it’s important to realize that it takes more than just an assortment of posts featuring images and creative copy. When it comes to Facebook Ads, one word should be behind all your company’s efforts: optimization.

You should always try to think about how you can optimize your campaigns so they fully take advantage of the platform and smartly utilize your ad money, resulting in high conversion rates. The average Facebook user clicks on 11 ads per month. How can you ensure that your company’s ad is one of those lucky 11?

When creating your ad, understanding your brand’s offering and your target audience is only half the equation. Let’s take a look at a few other considerations paramount to your Facebook Ads success.

1. Determine which of Facebook Ads’ campaign objectives align with your company’s goals

What is your company hoping to gain as a result of your advertising on Facebook? Is it higher sales? New leads? More email subscribers?

Then, how will you determine whether you have succeeded in achieving this goal when all is said and done?

Thankfully, Facebook Ads has built-in advertising objectives that make it easier for your brand to set benchmarks for optimized success. This means that your company’s success goes beyond how many likes a post receives over a given period of time. Here’s a breakdown of the features Facebook offers that allow you to set concrete goals for your company’s campaign:

i. Awareness

These are objectives that result in an increase in the interest of your company’s product or service offerings.

• Brand Awareness: What segment of your audience is more likely to recall your ads and recognize your brand?
• Reach: How many people does your ad reach within your targeted audience?

ii. Consideration

These objectives determine how people think about your business and whether they take the next steps to learn about your offerings.

• Traffic: How can you increase the number of people who visit your company’s website?
• Engagement: How can you get people to see and interact with your company’s page and individual posts?
• App Installs: How can you prompt people to download your app?
• Video Views: How can you promote videos offering innovative content that lead to an increase in awareness?
• Lead Generation: How can you acquire useful information for potential leads, including email addresses?
• Messages: How can you spark conversation among your audiences and answer potential questions they may have about your brand?

iii. Conversion

These are objectives that allow you to understand what drives people to purchase your company’s product or service offerings.

• Conversions: What are the most effective ways to get people to use your company’s website, Facebook app, or mobile app?
• Catalog Sales: How can you showcase certain offerings based on your target audiences?
• Store Traffic: How can you promote various locations when people are nearby your business?

All of these factors come into play when you consider your company’s Facebook Ads strategy. Determining which general business objectives best fit your company’s goals will allow you to benefit from the true value of this platform in the long-run.

2. Compare and contrast the value of broad vs. specific endeavors

The media landscape is rapidly changing based on the desires of consumers and the increase in competition. Therefore, in order to achieve the maximum level of success, you need to think about what works best for your brand in terms of how to reach and maintain your target audience’s attention. Think about how specific your ad needs to be in order to meet the expectations of your audience.

While being specific can be beneficial when creating content, it can also prove to be costly. Being specific also means that you will likely end up targeting a smaller pool of people. This may be what you are looking for, but make sure you consider the goals of your brand and how that aligns with the needs of your potential customers.

Every brand, business and company is different, so there’s no specific formula for developing your Facebook Ads audience. Instead, it is important to weigh your targeting options with their potential outcomes.

In most cases, finding a sense of balance is key. Testing your methods can also help you determine what works best for your company’s overall social media outreach strategy. Specific targeting may seem great, but you can always try going a bit broader in order to stretch your budget.

3. Create eye-catching content

You’ve heard it before, but I’ll say it again: A picture is worth a thousand words. When it comes to social media ads, your company’s worst enemy is the dreaded scroll. Your goal is to get each set of eyes to stop and stare.

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that the key to creating effective content is to keep it visual. Studies show that people have the ability to recall 65% of the visual content that they see almost three days later. Utilizing appealing imagery that aligns with your company’s branding is one of the best ways to increase your chances of engagement and brand awareness.

4. Consider what your target audience finds interesting

When developing various forms of Facebook content for your audience, be sure to think from your audience’s point of view. Content creation is only effective when you prioritize the wants and needs of your customers, or in this case, potential customers.

This means that when you are developing a campaign strategy, researching your target audience in advance is vital. You can then align your content with what your audience finds relevant and intriguing. Don’t waste money on ads that your target audience won’t even want to engage with.

If you are struggling to determine whether your content is relevant to your audience, you can check your relevance score within Facebook Ads. Within the tool kit Facebook Ads offers, you can receive ratings for each of your ads. A higher score means that your ad’s content is considered more relevant to your audience, therefore increasing its chances of making a lasting impact.

5. Include a reasonable endgame for each ad you create

Making sure your audience members see and understand the value of your brand is crucial when developing the content you’ll be placing on their news feeds. Once you’ve created something featuring relevant copy and aesthetically pleasing visuals, it’s important to include a clear offer for potential customers, followed by a bold call-to-action (CTA) that stimulates engagement.

Your offer doesn’t need to be a discount code or a free ebook download. You can simply explain why they should support your brand by:

• Showing your audience why you are better than your competitors.
• Explaining the benefits that await them.
• Addressing potential concerns and highlighting what makes your company unique.

These are just a few ways to showcase your brand’s value before you execute your call-to-action. Ultimately, your CTA will serve as the final factor of encouragement for your audience. Be sure to make your CTA clear and actionable. The last thing you want is for someone to be confused about what to do next.

Make Facebook Ads a large part of your marketing strategy

At the end of the day, Facebook is a platform that should not be ignored when building a content marketer’s tool kit. It’s a place where words, images, videos, and interests come together to form a community like no other.

When developing a content marketing strategy for Facebook Ads, keep in mind these useful techniques. Understanding the features of the platform and how they can benefit your business/brand/company, as well as understanding your target audiences and how your offerings align with their needs, will set the stage for your digital success.